Page 20 of The Last One You Loved
My lips curled upward. Our little town was as proud of their celebrities as Bell Buckle was of their RC Cola and MoonPies. The football stadium at my high school had been named after a dead football star, and the area behind the lake was well-known as “Watery Reflection Hill” because the famous band had built several homes at the top of it. Famous was normal in Willow Creek. I’d almost forgotten that in the years I’d been gone.
Memories assaulted me as I drove into town—running down the sidewalks with Maddox, ice cream sticking to our hands that we’d taunted each other with, fishing with string and worms at the creek. The good memories twined with the ugly screams, broken bones, and bruises that had chased me out of a house and into his arms.
I pushed all the visions aside, trying to see Willow Creek through a grown-up’s eyes. I’d forgotten the plethora of church steeples that peeked from the town’s rooftops, but not the quaint feel of Main Street. It was as if nothing had changed in all the years I’d been gone. It still resembled a Hallmark Christmas card with its old-fashioned lampposts, cobbled streets lined with magnolia and willow trees, and ancient brick buildings with columns and wood-encased storefronts. The sun was setting, and the light glinted off the bicycles parked, unlocked, along the sidewalk because no one dared steal them. The lead-glass windows of the mom-and-pop shops sparkled, turning the street into a mass of gold and crystalized rainbows.
I didn’t know if I was happy or sad about the lack of change. Like some reverse version ofRip Van Winklewhere the entire town had been asleep for a decade, and I was the only one who’d moved on, grown up, and become an alternate version of the teen who’d sped away as fast as she could.
My map app told me to turn left just after the jewelry store. I barely remembered the names of any of the roads. As a kid, growing up here, I’d never needed them, so I’d had to look up the address. Turning now meant I wouldn’t have to drive by the bar and the duplex across from it on my first day in town. Maybe I’d work up to going by it. Maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d join Rip and the entire town in their deep sleep, dozing for another decade without ever leaving my bedroom.
I parked the subcompact rental on the curb and stared at the house the navigation had sent me to. It was in much better shape than I’d expected. I’d thought it would have peeling paint, old carpet, and dust balls crowding the floors, but Trap must have had someone maintaining it, because it felt almost…charming.
There was a sheriff’s vehicle parked in front of it by a quaint mailbox shaped like a barn with the number emblazoned on the side, so I knew it was the right address. I frowned, the first note of apprehension sneaking in. Nothing about the house screamed Trap. My dad was not charming or into barn-shaped mailboxes. The yard wasn’t overgrown with weeds but was carefully mowed with a large weeping willow off to one side and bushes lining a picket fence that would likely be full of color in the spring.
Only two things kept me from driving away—the fact that the house was dark, with no sign of movement inside, and the key I had in my pocket. Trap had said it would always be waiting for me if I needed a place to land. And I desperately did. He’d promised, and my dad had never promised me anything else.
I swallowed back my unease, climbed out of the car, stretched my tight muscles from the drive, and then pulled my two bags from the back. They’d barely fit in the car’s trunk because it was so tiny. I dragged them up the walk and hesitated again, seeing a porch swing with a brightly patterned cushion and pots of what looked like rosemary and basil growing inside a wrought-iron stand shaped like a bicycle.
This was wrong.
Everything felt wrong.
But where else did I have to go? I was here—with a hundred dollars to my name until I got paid in a week. That was barely enough for the gas back to the airport in Nashville. What could I do? Go back and try to change my flight home? Pay the difference on a credit card already screaming? My residency came with a decent wage, but I’d been shoving as much of my salary as I could stand at my loans, living off the bare minimum.
I juggled the key in my hand while I debated. If the key didn’t work, I’d know something had changed, that the house was no longer Trap’s. And if it opened, and I found Trap had set up a girlfriend there, and she was maintaining the place for him, I’d beg to stay until I got paid at least.
Shoulders back, I inhaled and stuck the key in the lock. When it clicked open, I let out my breath shakily. Thank God.
The smell of cinnamon hit me, like someone had baked recently. Shit.
I dragged my rolling suitcase inside and set my other bag down.
“What did you forget?” a deep voice asked from inside, and I froze as it wafted through me, colliding with all the memories from the drive into town.
The hall light was flicked on, and I felt the color drain from my face. I had to put a hand out on the door behind me to keep from falling over. The last person I’d expected to see tonight was standing in front of me.
He wore an old Henley with a tattered hem and jeans that looked like they’d been washed a hundred times, and his long feet were bare. He’d been smiling, the edges of it showing new laugh lines around his eyes and at the edges of his mouth, but it slipped away as our gaze met. His blue eyes seemed more vivid, squinting as if trying to focus on the image of me in his doorway.
“McKenna?” He seemed confused, rubbing a hand through a hefty amount of growth on his chin.
What the hell was he doing in Trap’s house, looking like I’d just pulled him from a cozy snuggle on the couch?
“Mad-Maddox?” I said his name in a stunned, breathy whisper.
I’d known I’d see him while I was in town. But there was no way I was prepared for it tonight, not after days of hell, Dr. Gregory’s threats, the long drive, and the loss of my dreams that had followed me back to my childhood nightmares.
As I watched, his expression changed from startled surprise to pure panic.
“You can’t be here!” he growled. “You have to fucking leave.”
My heart slammed against my chest, and tears pricked my eyes, causing me to bite my cheek and clench the handle of my bag tighter. I deserved his response. Deserved the harshness?the anger?but damn did it still hurt.
“I don’t understand,” I said, hand pulling on my ponytail, bouncing up on my toes and back down. He watched the movements, closed his eyes, and swallowed hard.
“You have to go!” he said, not even opening his eyes again.
“Daddy! You’re missing the best part!”
A little body ran from the open archway down the hall and slammed into his legs. He didn’t even budge. He just reached a large hand down to surround a head of hair the color of hay drenched in sunshine. The little girl’s face was buried in the back of his jeans, but I could still tell she wasn’t more than four or five.
